


See You In My Dreams

by BleedingInk



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, F/F, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Late Night Conversations, Love Confessions, Mutual Pining, Nightmares, One Shot, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 07:34:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20131690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleedingInk/pseuds/BleedingInk
Summary: Kaia has a nightmare and can't go back to sleep. Claire wants to help her with that.





	See You In My Dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shippers_Roost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shippers_Roost/gifts).

> Happy birthday, Dakota! Have some fluff.

Kaia woke up trembling, a suffocated scream escaping her lips before she could put an arm in front of her mouth to suffocate it. Her entire body was covered in cold sweat. She hugged herself, as the last images of the Bad Place disappeared from her eyes.

It had been months now, months since her wondering soul had found its way into the Other Kaia’s body, months since she’d come back to life, months since she’d understood why she’d always had that weird connection to the Bad Place.

But the nightmares wouldn’t just stop because of the new understanding she’d gained. All the fear, solidified by years and years that she had spent trying to avoid even thinking about that place lousy with monsters, wouldn’t just go away because she knew why it kept seeping into her dreams. It wouldn’t go away just because she had a roof over her head and a warm meal waiting for her every night and people who cared about her. The nightmares were less than before, but they were still coming and she wasn’t sure they would ever stop.

She was lucky that Alexis was working the night shift at the hospital that night. She wouldn’t have wanted to wake her up just because her dreams kept refusing to do what she wanted them to. She finally stopped shaking and settled back down on the pillow, but she was wide awake and she doubted that she could go back to sleep…

A soft knock on the door startled her. Kaia sat up again, looking around to see if there was anything out of place in the room, if she’d fallen asleep without realizing it. But the knock came again and there was no doubt about it: someone was at the other side of the door.

No, not just anyone. Claire.

“Kaia?” she called, softly. It sounded like she was trying to see if she was up, but didn’t want to wake her up if she wasn’t.

Kaia was tempted for a moment to stay very still and very quiet. She didn’t want any of the others to worry, not after everything they had done and continued to do for her. But the nightmare was still fresh in her mind and Claire always had a way to make her feel… protected.

So she kicked the covers aside and tiptoed towards the door.

Claire hadn’t turned on the light of the hall, obviously not meaning to alert Jody of her moving around the house when they were supposed to be sleeping. She sported a t-shirt that looked black in the darkness, but that Kaia knew for a fact was a faded grey, and short pajama pants. Her long blonde hair fell free over her shoulders, curling a little here and there, but a little in disarray, as if she’d just woken up as well.

She was so beautiful even like this. She would be even more so if she was smiling instead of frowning at Kaia with concern.

“Hey, are you okay? I thought I heard you scream…”

“No… yeah,” Kaia admitted. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, uncomfortable. Maybe she should have stayed in bed after all. “I… I didn’t mean to wake you and Patience up…”

“Oh, you didn’t wake Patience.” Claire rolled her eyes. “She’s been studying for her SATs for three nights in a row. I’m like ‘Can’t you just use your powers to tell which questions they’ll ask?’ and she’s like ‘No, that’s cheating!’ Anyway, not even a banshee could wake her now.”

Despite the uneasiness that she couldn’t quite shake, Kaia found herself chuckling at that. Claire’s lips quirked in the way they did that made Kaia think that she couldn’t bring herself to fully smile sometimes. Maybe she couldn’t. Of the four of them, Claire was the only one who had decided to become a full-fledged hunter and she was away for days, fighting off the monsters wherever she found them. Kaia always felt like her heart was in her throat during those times and that it only returned to its rightful place when she heard the engine of Claire’s truck parking in the driveway again.

“Besides, I… I’m a light sleeper and my bed is right next to yours… I mean, next to the wall where yours is and… you know what I mean. I just heard you and thought I should check up on you,” Claire concluded clumsily. “So are you okay?”

Kaia sighed deeply. That was a complicated question.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

Claire didn’t move from where she was. Her eyes looked almost dark as they fell on Kaia’s face and Kaia had to hold her breath back. If there had been even a twinkle of light, she knew they would have looked bright blue, blue like the sky while looking up underwater on a sunny day and sometimes she found herself looking at Claire’s eyes and thinking all sort of dumb things.

Like how she wanted to drown in them.

And she was doing it again right now, so it was better she ended this conversation before she said something really, really stupid.

“It was… it was just a nightmare,” she stammered.

“Just a nightmare?” Claire asked, tilting her head.

It was a fair question, given Kaia’s powers. But she knew the difference between one of her own nightmares and accidentally dreamwalking into someone else’s head. It happened more often with Alexis, since that was the person she slept closest to. She hated when that happened, because Alexis had her own nightmares to deal with, always about blood and screams and sharp teeth. It felt as uncomfortable as reading her diary for both of them, so Kaia suspected the reason she took on so many night shifts lately was to save them both the embarrassment.

“You don’t have to worry about me,” Kaia said, hoping that would be the thing that finally would make Claire go away.

But Claire didn’t move.

“Of course I worry about you.”

And well, the truth was that Kaia didn’t want her to leave. She _never _wanted her to leave.

Claire took a step closer to her and Kaia could have sworn that she felt the heat radiating from her body. She tried not to shiver again, but she was so cold and Claire was there, so warm and tall and brave…

“Is there anything I can do to help you?”

Kaia swallowed. That was a loaded question that she didn’t know how to answer to, but she tried anyway.

“I… do you mind… maybe staying here tonight?” she requested. She couldn’t look at Claire’s face anymore, so she lowered her gaze to their feet. “And just… keeping me company?”

She was absolutely certain that there was no monster in the universe (in _any_ universe) that would hurt her the way it would hurt if Claire told her no, that she needed to be braver and deal with her own issues. Even though she would be absolutely right in saying so and maybe she was thinking it, because this silence was going on for too long and…

“You know what, it’s stupid. I’m sorry I asked. I should just go back to bed and let you…”

“I’ll stay.”

“You… you will?”

Claire gave her that same half smile again and strolled inside the room. Kaia’s pulse quickened for a second thinking she was going to get in her bed (oh, God, had she sweated all over the sheets? They were probably disgusting), but Claire sat on Alex’s bed instead.

“I’ll be right here,” she said. “And if you have another nightmare, I’ll wake you up.”

Kaia breathed out very slowly. She didn’t know why she was disappointed. Of course Claire wasn’t going to get in her bed and cuddle with her. She had been an idiot for thinking so.

Still, a part of her couldn’t help her disappointment as she got back to her own bad.

“Okay. Thank you,” she muttered.

“Good night.”

Kaia pulled the covers up and turned her back to Claire. Why the hell did she feel so disappointed? It was just… so stupid. Claire didn’t see her as anything other than a friend, and of course, why would she? Her nose was too narrow, her chin was too pointy. She had too many issues, too many ways of screwing over people, she was a hassle. She should be thankful Claire even talked to her without her making it weird on top of it.

And, oh, God, this had been a terrible idea. What if she dreamwalked into Claire’s mind and saw something she didn’t want her to see? She couldn’t sleep now!

The springs of Alex’s bed creaked. Kaia closed her eyes and took deep breaths, trying to calm down. She wasn’t going to fall asleep and she wasn’t going to breach Claire’s privacy. But she needed to pretend that she was going to so she wouldn’t worry any further…

A hand came to rest softly on her shoulder. Kaia startled again, but willed herself to turn around very slowly. Claire was standing next to her bed, holding Alex’s pillow closed to her body.

“Hey,” she started. “Umh… so I thought maybe I should sleep here with you. To know if you’re having a nightmare.”

“Oh.” Kaia blinked a couple of times. She raised her hand and quickly counted her fingers, making sure there were five. That always helped her distinguish if she was sleeping or not, and this time, incredibly, she seemed to be just as wide awake as she had been a moment before. “I… if you… if you want to.”

Instead of answering, Claire settled the pillow down. Kaia instinctively scooted away to make place for her. It was so strange. After years of sleeping on the boards that passed for beds in shelters and rehab clinics, the bed Jody had given her felt uncomfortably large, but now that Claire was in there with her, suddenly, it was oppressively small. She tried to get as far away as she could, so no part of her body would even grazed Claire’s…

“Look, if this is too awkward for you, I can just get back to the other bed. Or like… leave.”

“No!” Kaia said, a little louder than she needed to. God, she was a mess tonight. She cleared her throat and tried to speak clearly. “I just… I thought… you didn’t… I mean, I know we…” She stopped talking and closed her eyes. She couldn’t focus on what she wanted to say with Claire’s face mere inches away from her. “I’m sorry.”

Light finger touches on the side of her face. Kaia shivered once more, but not out of cold this time. When she opened her eyes, she saw that Claire had a sad expression on her face.

“Don’t. You don’t have to apologize to me,” she said. “I’m just… I’m thinking some very stupid things. They don’t even matter.”

Kaia stopped herself from saying that of course they mattered, everything Claire thought or felt mattered. Instead, she muttered:

“What kind of things?”

Claire still had her hand on Kaia’s cheek. It rested there, warm and soft and Kaia just wanted to close her eyes and focus on that touch. But she felt that whatever Claire was going to tell her was too important to miss it.

“I don’t know. Just like… how you’re her, but you’re really not,” she said. “I mean, I know you have her soul, but the other one is there too and just… you’re different from her. From my… from the Kaia I knew, I mean.”

“Oh,” Kaia said again, simply because she didn’t know what else to say. She lowered her eyes to focus on Claire’s collarbone, because looking at her eyes was simply too intense. “Well… I just… I have always been her. And she has always been me.”

Claire moved a little and when Kaia dared to look at her face again, she saw she was frowning in confusion. So Kaia tried to explain it. It was difficult to put in words, but she had to try anyway.

“She dreamed about this place, too, the way I dreamed about the Bad Place. She wanted to come here to escape the monsters. But she thought we couldn’t both exist in the same place, so that’s why she… hurt me.”

“She killed you,” Claire corrected her.

Kaia figured that was technically correct, but then again, it was a bit more complicated than that.

“But… when my soul found her, we both understood it. It’s not that just we’re two versions of the same person. We _are_ the same person, two halves of a whole. We don’t know how we got split and how she ended there, but when she let me in, it was… it was like coming home after a long trip. It was as if something had always been missing from me, but I didn’t know it until then. She must have felt the same, because she just accepted me immediately. And so… we… I’m a fuller person now. I don’t know if that makes sense.”

Claire stayed quiet for a long time, maybe taking in what Kaia had said. She didn’t move her hand, which Kaia thanked.

“I guess it makes a little sense,” she said, finally.

Kaia had the impression she didn’t really understood it, but that was okay. She figured there would be very few people in the world who really got it.

“I just don’t really know how to feel about you,” Claire said.

Kaia involuntarily raised her head, shocked at those words. She immediately regretted it, because it got Claire to move her hand away and that was the last thing Kaia wanted. But she needed to understand this.

“What do you mean?”

Claire sighed and stared at the ceiling for a little while. It seemed like she was the one who had trouble finding the words now.

“I mean, that we… I… before you… died,” she said, settling for a neutral word for what’d happened. “We met each other for just a little while and it’s ridiculous, but I really liked you then. Like, a lot. And then I… we got you back and I’m just trying to wrap my head around the fact that you’re you, but different and… well, I guess it doesn’t really matter how I feel.” She chuckled, but it came off as a sad, forced sound. “Because you don’t really think that way about me and maybe you never did.”

Suddenly, Kaia was finding it hard to breathe. She resisted the urge to check again if she was dreaming. If she was, it didn’t matter. She liked it here, with Claire so close to her and whispering this conversation full of heavy words. Heavy because of the meaning they had behind them, because they doubled for what they were saying and for what they were trying not to say.

She took a deep, shuddering breath.

“I'm always thinking about you, Claire.”

It was Claire’s turn to be surprised. Her eyes opened wide and the edge of her lips trembled, like she was holding back a smile.

“You are?”

“Yes.”

And then Kaia did something very impulsive and very dumb, something she had been dying to do for a while now. She leaned forward and pressed her lips against Claire’s.

And she wasn’t sure what happened next, because she was suddenly floating in this spiral of rushing thoughts and sensations strong enough to drown them all, like how hot Claire’s mouth was, and how soft her hair was tangled in Kaia’s fingers and how nice it felt to have Claire’s hand in her waist, holding her, as if she wanted to assure her she was there, really there, and not going anywhere.

She had to break away, because she was running out of breath and she was afraid she would black out without getting to see Claire’s reaction to what she’d done.

Because suddenly she wasn’t scared anymore. At least not, about this. Never about this again.

Claire had her eyes closed, but they slowly fluttered open. Then her lips curved, but instead of stopping at the half smirk, they kept going and going until they bloomed into a full beam of pure happiness. The dawn was still hours again, but Kaia could have sworn the sun was right there in the bed with her. And she couldn’t stop staring.

“Okay, then,” Claire said. “There’s that.”

And she laughed, a sound so joyful, so beautiful, it warmed Kaia’s chest and suddenly she was laughing too, because everything she felt couldn’t be contained. They moved closer and Claire sneaked an arm under Kaia’s head for her to use as a pillow, leaning forwards so their foreheads touched. Kaia slid a hand under Claire’s shirt to feel her skin and tangled her legs with hers.

“Do you think you can sleep now?” Claire whispered.

Kaia laughed again, because she’d completely forgotten about the nightmare by then.

“Yeah, but I have to warn you: if you stay here, I might walk into your dreams. I don’t mean to, but I can’t help it.”

Claire ran a hand through Kaia’s hair.

“That’s fine. I already see you in my dreams all the time.”


End file.
